Originally Posted by mattyg1027
No idea, but Bryan usually posts a News item when they do.
I think the rebate prices change in tandem with the new lens prices. If there's a rebate, refurb and used lens prices go down to maintain the incentive. I would guess (but I'm not certain) that prices on the refurb, when available, will also rise now that the new lens has gone back up. That price must have been from a while back - the Oct 2009-Jan 2010 rebates. The more recent 7D and 5D+lens rebates were presumably in response to a Nikon rebate program, and the current 50D rebates aren't really that extensive. Historically, Canon's major lens rebates come twice per year - May-July and Oct-Jan. So, if you hold out for a month or month and a half, you may see prices drop again!
I am kind of surprised more people didn't discount the 18-55 as even effectively "covering" me on the wide end. I guess I don't give the lens enough credit. Maybe I shouldn't have stuffed it away for good after buying my primes. I guess the fact that it's slow isn't that important if I'm mostly using it for landscapes.
The 18-55mm IS kit lens isn't a bad lens, it's just not a good lens. It's optically decent if you use it stopped down to f/5.6 or f/8, but that's a narrow sweet spot. It will do fine for snapshots (indoors, you'll need a flash, preferably an external Speedlite).
For landscapes, I'd say it's tolerable. The kit lens gets optically softer beyond f/8, and that's also where diffraction begins to have an effect on your XSi's sensor. So, when you use narrow apertures for deep DoF in landscapes you're adding optical softness to diffraction. But, at the wide end you don't need as narrow an aperture for deep DoF, so you'd be ok, I think. The other notable hassle with the kit lens is that the front element rotates, making it a challenge to use a circular polarizing filter (which are nice for landscapes), but I hope you'd be using a tripod, in which case you'd have both hands free to hold the front element while rotating the CPL.
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